Museum gifts

You can shop till you drop — or you can drop a few dollars that make a difference. In these stormy times, museums and libraries need all the support they can get, so beef up their bottom lines by buying into their inspired designs and quirky craftsmanship for $75 and less. Let your fingers do the walking online, or make holiday shopping an excuse to catch up with the exhibits you’ve missed. And why not treat yourself to a membership? It has its privileges — like 20 percent off most of the merch here!
Forgo the schmear — just order the Jewish Museum store’s plastic bagel ($7.95), a yummy-looking yo-yo that should fit perfectly under your menorah — and just in time for the last night of Hanukkah! Makes a nice ecumenical stocking stuffer, too; shop.thejewishmuseum.org.

Weegee’s favorite lens on the city was his trusty Speed Graphic. Now, it’s a pillow ($65): Printed on canvas, the very picture of hard-nose news-catching is made in Brooklyn exclusively for the International Center of Photography; shopping.icp.org/store.

As pretty as a peacock but infinitely more useful is the Metropolitan Museum’s velvet jewelry roll ($30), inspired by prints by French artist Maurice Pillard Verneuil; store.metmuseum.org.

Leave it to MoMA to elevate the most humble housewares into art: Witness its versatile vessels for flowers, like Stephan Jaklitsch’s many-cylindered, interlocking, puzzle-inspired terrain vase ($48); momastore.org.

The New York Public Library’s shop, just off the Fifth Avenue entrance, has a slew of great gifts for every age group — especially the younger set — like the Uncle Goose ABC blocks ($45), chunky cubes featuring letters and animals. Here they come in eight languages — all of them handmade in America. Now that’s a switch: Even the Chinese blocks come from the USA! shop.nypl.org.

Zandy Mangold

Bring out the animal in your loved one with one of the more beautiful umbrellas around, each of its eight pale-blue panels patterned with a different beast — a Delacroix tiger, Audubon’s gray rabbits — drawn from the Morgan Library & Museum; $75, the morgan.org/shop.

Nothing says timeless like an extinct marine invertebrate — also known as ammonite. You’ll find plenty under glass at the American Museum of Natural History, but you can actually buy some, too, via an Egyptian-inspired ring and bangle ($70 each) set in a gold-toned, hypoallergenic alloy called Alchemia; shop.amnh.org.

AMNH / D. Finin

We toast the Brooklyn Museum for its tilting wine decanter by Swedish designer Roger Persson. Made from hand-blown glass, it has a rounded bottom and silicone base ($50); the six matching glasses will set you back $32; brooklyn-museum.org.

Bright lamps, big city: Andreas Feininger’s moody, black-and-white images of our town for the New-York Historical Society’s World War II show inspired this Brooklyn Bridge light. Compact, with a vinyl shade and brushed-nickel base, it’s made in the USA and takes a 60-watt bulb. Would you rather turn on Times Square or the Sheep Meadow? The lamp comes with those photos, too; $59.95, nyhistorystore.com.